


In Dreams

by Pigeon_theoneandonly



Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Inquisition AU, Longing, married au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:27:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28423947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pigeon_theoneandonly/pseuds/Pigeon_theoneandonly
Summary: Hawke is left in the Fade.  In Kirkwall, awaiting news from the south, Sebastian is visited by his wife in dreams... and must use these glimpses of the Fade to become her only hope.
Relationships: Female Hawke/Sebastian Vael
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	In Dreams

The first time Sebastian Vael heard Hawke call out for him, he started awake, reaching groggily towards her side of the bed. His stomach dropped when he found nothing but cold linen. Then his mind caught up with his nascent panic; his wife had gone south, answering a request from Varric to assist the Inquisition. She was not expected back for weeks yet, if not months. All was well.

Despite these attempts to calm himself, he still wound up staring at the canopy until dawn.

* * *

Kirkwall did not wait on the return of its viscountess. Affairs of government continued; messengers arrived at regular intervals, leaving an accumulation of paperwork on the entry table which Sebastian reluctantly moved to her desk once it threatened to slide off onto the floor. Removing it seemed all too much like admitting she wouldn’t be home anytime soon. He did spend a moment sorting it, because it felt good to do something for her, even in her absence, and then he put on his cloak and went out. Hawke’s brooding ancestral mansion was menacing in its shadows, an oppressive aura driven back by Hawke’s vitality now given free rein. The fresh air tasted of relief.

Perhaps he should have remained in Starkhaven after all. Politically, Hawke, and by association Kirkwall, remained his strongest allies in his bid to reclaim his throne. They had agreed her sojourn presented an opportune moment to demonstrate to the remaining Kirkwall elite that he didn’t simply ride along on the hem of her gown, and solidify their support. That seemed less worthwhile by the day. 

But he had a duty. To Hawke, to his people, to his slain family. So he twitched the hood lower against the rain and trudged up the street.

The first Chantry had been built by dwarves, and stood for nearly fifteen hundred years, an unfathomable span of time, though family legend held the oldest chapel of the Starkhaven Chantry dated back even further. Though it had been repaired and expanded over the centuries, sometimes its age seemed to weigh on the air, as he trod corridors worn smooth by countless feet, performing his duties. The one that had taken its place stank of concrete and fresh-hewn stone, and unseemly haste. It lacked entirely the grace of the older building, and much more resembled the wood-roofed chantries of Ferelden. 

_Grace will come with age and use,_ he reminded himself as he pushed through the doors, wincing at the construction noise. 

An acolyte hurried over promptly. Newly initiated, from the stiffness of her robes. Given the troubles emanating from the Grand Cathedral in recent years, even before the tragedy at the Conclave, it was a wonder they’d been sent anyone at all. She gave him a broad smile. “Brother Sebastian, what a pleasure.”

That was not his title any longer. It would be a lie to say he did not miss that life, even if he had no regret for the one that took its place. “Thank you, but I’m an advisor, trying to bring Andraste’s light back to Starkhaven, nothing more.”

A pretense. The Chantry was an ally as well, and the more he could grow their influence at home, the more they both benefited. If nothing else, Elthina’s actions demonstrated clearly that he’d been naïve to imagine the Chantry wasn’t blatantly political, even if its politics were in service of the highest possible cause. “I would like to speak with the Revered Mother.”

The acolyte nodded. “I’m afraid she’s preoccupied, but if my lord would be willing to wait…?”

He wasn’t that either. Much though it grated. “No trouble.”

The girl hurried off. Sebastian followed at a meandering pace until he came to the apse, at the far end of the long aisle forming the Chantry’s spine. This Andraste stood robed with one hand raised, cupping candlelight, and her eyes lifted to the skies. He rather missed the sword and armor. The gilding, however, shone even brighter; Kirkwall’s aristocracy eager to display their piety through financial contribution to the rebuilding. 

Candles still crowded her feet, hundreds of them. Their smoke stung his eyes, went to his head, but it felt like home. He sat on a bench to wait.

It might have been several marks or mere moments later when the bench shifted as someone else lent their weight to its boards. Sebastian glanced over, and startled. Hawke’s fingers curled around the edge of the bench. She stared straight ahead, though not at anything in particular. She looked so tired.

“You’re home already?” The words left his mouth before he could think past them. There was no elation, or relief. Only confusion. It wasn’t like her to just… turn up. Hawke loved a good entrance.

“I’m just going to sit a moment,” she said, not turning her head. Then she tilted it, considering. “Though a moment could be a year. And this bench might be a dragon’s tail. I think I’d rather like that. The last time I met one, it didn’t go that badly.”

She took a breath, hitching ever so slightly at the end of her inhale. His brow furrowed. “What are you on about?”

When that garnered no reply, he followed her gaze forward. His eyes widened. 

The statue of Andraste gleamed darkly in a sinister green light. Black ichor dripped down the marble folds in rivulets, wet, repellent, stripping the gold away. Her eye sockets had been hollowed out. Their vacancy went beyond heresy; this wasn’t a challenge to Chantry doctrine. This was an utter refutation. 

Hawke licked her lips. Her fingers tapped at the bench, nervous agitation. Then she took another breath, surer. “Right. Best get on with it.”

He reached for her arm. “Darling—”

A hand alighted on his shoulder. Hawke vanished. He awoke, blinking, in the soft light of Kirkwall’s chantry, muted by the haze of candle smoke. “My Lord Vael?”

He looked up. The acolyte frowned her concern. He pressed his lips together. Swallowed, buying a bit of time to regain his composure. “I must have nodded off.”

“Sleeping problems?”

It was impertinent to ask. Wherever she trained, it was far from rarefied. “It’s nothing.”

She huffed a breath out her nose, but made no further comment. “The Revered Mother can see you now.”

* * *

Several days passed in a blur. Sebastian picked up a task only to put it down again, all traces of concentration evaporated in the wake of that dream. It couldn’t be real. They had spent time apart before, but never like this, never with her secreted away to aid an insurgency against the Chantry. Their faith had always bound them together, from the very start. And Varric…

He wanted to trust him. He did. But with her life? Hawke was his blood and his breath. She was the only one who managed to make any sense out of the ruin of his life, the murder of his family, their betrayal and his duty in that aftermath. Without her, he was lost.

In that moment, she seemed tangible, close enough to touch, the changed altar vivid in its cruelty. He would have sworn it was real. 

But that wasn’t possible. It was anxiety. Nerves. Staying in Kirkwall, with all its reminders of her absence, had been a mistake. 

* * *

Everything here was the color of a bruise, dark green blooming to black at the edges. No sense of up or down. He watched Hawke lumber up a wall and onto the ceiling to cross a crevasse. Her boots had worn at the heel, like she’d been walking for years, and not gone a mere two months. Her hair had gotten longer, too, hanging down into her eyes. 

She trudged along without any sense of purpose except to keep walking. He called her name, several times, and once her head twitched like she’d just barely heard him, but then she gave herself a shake, and kept walking.

He wrote her in the morning. He never received a response.

* * *

Two weeks of broken sleep led him to the alienage. The weather had been dead and still; ribbons hung listless from the _vhenadahl_ , waiting without expectation for a better time. Elven eyes followed him as he made his way through the district. Wary, but without much interest. 

Merrill’s door was clean and in good repair, just like the last time he’d seen it. His knuckles rapping on the wood sounded like a shout in the silence of that plaza. A moment later, the sound of the bar lifting, and a green eye appeared in the very smallest crack between door and frame. 

It did not look pleased to see him. Sebastian shifted his weight. “Can we talk?”

She regarded him just long enough for him to wonder if she’d really shut the door in his face. Then she sighed, and opened it fully. “You better come in.”

He stepped inside as she busied herself about the small room, every motion stiff, bordering on resentful. “Can’t imagine what brings you all this way. It’s quite a hike from Hawke’s estate.”

This was more awkward than he expected. “Merrill…”

She put down the teapot and rubbed her forehead. “I don’t mean that. Not really. It’s just been… difficult, you know? Hiding in plain sight. Waiting for one of the guards to not recognize me. Or the templars.”

“Hawke would never allow—”

“Well, she’s not here, is she?” She twisted her fingers and looked up at him, guiltily. “I didn’t mean that, either.”

“I know nothing’s been comfortable since… well.” He sat heavily, and rested his arm on the table. “After what Anders did, cracking down was the only way to keep the peace. It wasn’t personal.”

“I stood by you both that night, too.” Then she softened. “Can I make you some tea?”

“I’d love some tea.” Sebastian watched her bustle about the corner that served as her kitchen. “That’s why I’m here. I have a question for a mage.”

Her mouth thinned. She poured with deliberation. “And I’m the only one left.”

“That’s not true.” 

“Yes, well, I suppose you are even less welcome at the Circle.” Another startled, guilty glance. “Not that you’re not welcome here.”

He was too worried to be bothered. “It’s about Hawke.”

Merrill set the kettle over the fire. “What about Hawke?”

“You said once she was the first real friend you’d ever had. She was your people now.” He ran his hand over his hair. “Something’s wrong. Something’s very wrong, and I can’t understand it.”

Her brow furrowed. She sat across from him and folded her hands. “What’s wrong?”

It took a bit to explain about the dreams. When he was finished, he said, “I know it sounds like I’ve lost my mind. But it’s so real, Merrill. Like she’s standing in front of me. Like it’s her voice in my ears.”

“You’re not asking about a dream.” She blinked. “You’re asking about the fade.”

“Aren’t they the same thing?”

“Our spirit journeys to the fade while we dream, it’s true.” Merrill got up, leaving her teacup behind, and paced the room. “But we don’t… meet people there. No matter how badly we might want to.”

“Something happened to her down south,” he said, again. 

She raked her fingers through her hair, and teased the end of one of her short braids with her fingertips, glancing at the ceiling as if seeking inspiration on where to begin. “Are you familiar with the veil? The way our reality is ordered?”

Magic had never been an interest of his, save for the necessity of defending against it. The Chant had plenty to say regarding its dangers. “It’s the… boundary.”

“Yes.” Merrill seemed a touch exasperated. He straightened in his seat as she elaborated. “It is a kind of… of resonance, that keeps spirits to one side, and our physicality to another. Our own spirits cross over when we dream, and also, so many believe, in death. But the veil is not some static thing.”

“What do you mean?” 

“It… thins, places. We call it _setheneran_.”

Sebastian couldn’t have pronounced that if he tried, and he wasn’t about to embarrass them both trying. “And where it’s thinner, it’s easier to… traverse?”

She shook her head. “Nobody can cross over to the fade physically.”

He thought about the rifts that had appeared all over Thedas, pouring demons; of Hawke, hiking along the jagged, barren rocks of that green-black abyss, alone, possessed of a strange drive. “But if someone could, it might be easier in these… those places?”

“Theoretically?” She sat back down, folding her arms and looking at him directly for perhaps the first time since he arrived. “Sebastian, this is madness. Truly.”

“Where do you find a place like that?”

“Sebastian—”

“If you’re right, then what’s the harm?” He leaned forward. Trying not to look as desperate as he felt. “Merrill, it’s Hawke. If anything happened to her—”

Merrill puffed out a breath that lifted the hair off her face, an extended, exasperated sigh. “You want to find somewhere old. Somewhere there’s been too much magic, or too much death, or ideally—for your purposes, I mean, not in general—both. Blood magic is thought to be especially… Well.”

Even as she spoke, the exact spot he needed fell into his mind. So quickly, in fact, that it worried him. The Maker knew it wasn’t right. It was a holy place, a sacred place. But it had a long history, before the Chantry, before Tevinter, and it had always been a place of ritual. And in the deep past, ritual and magic and death were often inextricably intertwined.

She saw the change in his expression and stopped, crestfallen. “Oh, no. You know where you’re going.”

“I do.” He stood, hastily, nearly upsetting his teacup. “I can’t thank you enough for your help.”

But before he could reach the door, she put her hand on his arm. Suddenly very serious. “Sebastian—be careful. Even mages are afraid of the fade. You might find more than you bargained for.”

Impatience won out over politeness. “I’ll be fine,” he growled, and left the alienage, with plans to depart for Starkhaven by nightfall.

* * *

Hawke stared at the collection of rocks and dead spiders with a vacant, hopeless look. “I’ve been here before.”

His arms ached to comfort her. Everything about her was spent down to nothing. She rubbed her eyes, her hands shaking. “I have to—I have to—” 

She swallowed. Bit her lip. “There must be a way out.”

_I’ll find it for you, love_.

* * *

In technicality, the Starkhaven Chantry was entirely separate from the palace, though of course the two institutions were deeply co-dependent. Hence Sebastian’s ploy to regain his throne with their assistance. But the fact the buildings were physically separated served him well now. And the fact that he’d all but grown up within its walls, devote as his family was, ensured he knew every inch of the place. Even if he hadn’t been especially welcome by the time his family sent him to Kirkwall.

The Revered Mother expressed some surprise and no little suspicion when he asked to be let into the old chapel. Carved from bedrock and barely used, musty, and small enough that a single occupant felt like a crowd, it was only maintained because its walls were integral to the structural support. He burned a fair amount of personal capital allaying her concerns. 

Once she had left him alone, he stowed his torch and took in his surroundings. The plain decoration, simple carvings, some of them overwriting older and more heretical work, and the erratic firelight lent the room a ghastly veneer. The goosebumps on his arms declared he’d chosen well. There was a supernatural character to this place that hinted at what Merrill had described. 

He knelt and brushed his fingers along newer masonry, by the standards of this chapel, no more than a thousand years old—filling in old grooves in the floor, radiating from the stone block altar. _Too much magic, and too much death._

Yes, this was the place.

Red beeswax candles crowded the altar’s base. He knelt and took a taper, lighting them each by force of long habit. The ritual steadied him. He could perform no magic and he wasn’t trying. But still, trying to enter the fade with a firm intention, even through simple dreams, flew in the face of the Maker’s guidance. 

When the last candle was burning, his hands came to rest on his knees. His head bowed. Every line of his body pleading. _Maker, whatever darkness ensnared her in this place, she does not deserve it. Let me be strong enough to be your vessel, to bring your light to her, bright enough to find the way back._

He took a deep, even breath. Letting the smoke into his lungs in a measured stream, not enough to make him cough, but sufficient to make him woozy. Enough to make him nod off.

But this time, instead of waiting haphazardly for her to come to him, he went looking for her.

It was immediately clear that he’d guessed correctly; the veil was thin here, or at least, it met his expectations for what that meant. The burnt-rock stench of that horrific maze pierced the candle smoke. The light was so poor he couldn’t see more than an arm’s length in any direction. And from those darker reaches came the sound of skittering, cries in the shadows, and some noises he couldn’t identify at all. None of it dissuaded him. He set off into the night with every thought, every ounce of his will, focused on Hawke.

And it didn’t take him long to track her down.

She’d stopped walking. Instead, she sat in the middle of the path, such as it was, cross-legged and staring into nothing. 

He called her name. Once, twice. It took a third time for her to twitch her head. Then she put her face in her hands with a shuddering laugh. “Perhaps I need to eat here after all.”

Sebastien tried again, trying to keep a grip on his panic. There was no telling how long this would last. No telling if this was even real, though every sense he had declared it so. He knelt in front of her, face to face, though she seemed not to see him. “Hawke—” 

She looked up, and straight through him. He reached for her hands, though his own passed right through them. Then she squinted. “It can’t be you.”

His palm tried to cup her face in defiance of this dreamland, of the fact that neither of them were really present, in any meaningful way, shaking and smiling and scared out of his mind. “I’m here, I’m right here.”

“You are? You can’t—” And then she broke, clutching at him as well, and with as little success. She faded and wavered before his eyes. Like glimpsing her underwater, or through a fog. “Maker, Sebastian. There was a hole, and a spider, and I can’t get out, I can’t, I can’t—”

The nonsense could wait. What was important was _he found her_. “Where are you? What can’t you leave?”

“The fade. We crossed over and I’m… I thought I could find another exit, and I’ve tried, but I’m so tired.”

“I know. I know.” His need to touch her was so strong it felt like his skin was pulled towards hers magnetically, as if the force of not being able to reach her might tear him apart. “I’ve been seeing you, every night for weeks. I know you’ve tried.”

“You’re not really here—”

“I am,” he insisted. “Maybe not physically, but I came to find you. I’m listening to you now.”

She couldn’t speak. She only looked at him with a kind of hopeless sadness that cut him to the bone. So he spoke for her. “You went through some kind of rift. That had to be the Inquisitor’s doing.”

Hawke shook her head. “It’s not that simple.”

“But that’s the essence of it, yes?” He shuffled closer to her. Needing to be near her, all the same. “You’re in there, but I’m out here. I can find the Inquisition. We will come get you.”

She lifted her head. For the first time since that first night, tossing and turning in their empty bed, he saw something like anticipation on her face. “Please, hurry.”


End file.
